The government has admitted that almost a third of Tehran households are failing to pay their gas bills, a stark public rebellion.
Subsidies were reduced December 19 and replaced with direct cash payments to families of about $40 per person per month. But some families in poor South Tehran say their latest bi-monthly gas bill surged from $10 to $70 for each month, gobbling up much (but not all) of their welfare check.
The regime faced initial opposition from truck drivers facing much higher costs, but they were soon silenced.
The startling point was that the regime was able to clamp down so hard that for four months little critical has been said about the new policy. Normally vocal Majlis deputies have muffled themselves, indicating that they had received orders from the Supreme Leader that they were not to criticize the program.
Since the end of the Now Ruz holidays and the distribution of bi-monthly gas bills, that seems to have changed. Last week, as more and more housewives carped at the price of gas, the Ahmadi-nejad Administration dug in its heels.
“The tiered system of calculating the gas price of households will not be changed,” Deputy Oil Minister Javad Oji, who is in charge the state gas company, was quoted as saying by Donya-e Eqtesad daily.
Based on a tiered calculation system, the price can increase even further if consumers do not meet the “standard of consumption,” a measure introduced by the government to try to push down gas consumption. Under that price structure, the more a household consumes, the higher the price they must pay for each cubic meter used.
Oji acknowledged that some 30 percent of consumers, particularly in Tehran, have refused to pay their winter bills, the newspaper reported.
One concern is that the anger over gas bills might prompt more of the poor to join anti-regime protests. The protests since the June 2009 elections have largely been populated by the upper and middle classes, with the laboring classes notably absent.
The government appears to be counting on the warm weather of spring, which will lower bills once gas heaters are turned off, to ameliorate the anger.
The complaints aren’t just from the poor. The Washington Post reported that “dozens” of people gathered April 11 to protest at the gas company office in Shark-e Gharb, a wealthy Tehran neighborhood.
They were orderly and courteous as they presented their complaints to an official who responded, “I don’t know what to tell you. I haven’t even paid [my bill] myself.”
Some in the Majlis have finally started to speak out. Last week, the daily Sharq quoted Hamid-Reza Katouzian, chair of the Majlis Energy Committee, as saying, “The people don’t have the ability to pay their utility bills and the cash welfare payment is not enough.”
The national gas company argued that there is no basis for a change in prices since more than 80 percent of consumers are paying less than $35 a month.
Most apartment buildings have but one gas meter for all the apartments. That has prompted much bickering among residents who accuse others of high consumption while they conserve. President Ahmadi-nejad last week suggested that apartment dwellers pay to install one meter for each apartment.
According to official figures reported by the media, 75 million Iranians use as much gas as the 500 million people who live in the European Union.